My international allocation is 0.62%, but the pros say 30% to 40% and I might be making another move to start bringing that higher. For years my excuse was that I owned PepsiCo (PEP) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), so I already had foreign exposure. That's half right. A company like PepsiCo gives you global sales, but not global stock behavior. PepsiCo still trades like a US stock no matter where it sells its soda. And the excuse is getting weaker: Goldman Sachs says 28% of S&P 500 revenue came...
10 days ago • 5 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. It's embarrassing to admit this, but if it helps one person, it'll be worth it. On 1/1/2025, my employer started offering a Health Savings Account, and we enrolled. If you're not familiar, an HSA is like a retirement account on steroids because it's triple-tax advantaged: you contribute pre-tax dollars, invest them and let them compound, then spend them tax-free on qualified medical expenses. But here's the REALLY...
17 days ago • 3 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought My youngest turns 21 in less than four years. When that day comes, the custodial account we started for her stops being "mine to manage" and becomes hers, free and clear. And she's going to inherit a little tax problem. Let me show you. For example, she owns 4.1436 shares of Caterpillar (CAT). Her average cost is $174.33 a share. Today that position is sitting on a gain of $3,224.07. That gain is an...
24 days ago • 5 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought This week I got hit with a record dividend payment in my non-retirement accounts... $586.89! But something still messes with my head a little, even after doing this for years: my net worth did not go up by $586.89 when that money arrived. The second those dividends hit, the companies I own just moved money from their balance sheet to mine. That’s it. If that sounds like a buzzkill, it’s not meant to...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought I've seen this comment so many times about SCHD: "Why buy SCHD at 3.27% when a 2-year Treasury pays 4.09% — risk-free?" A higher yield with zero risk? Who'd say no to that? Calling a Treasury 'risk-free' just means you're guaranteed to get your interest and your principal back from the government. But what's often left out is that getting your dollars back doesn't mean those dollars will be worth as...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought I still can't believe how many people invest in covered call ETFs and swear by them, but unless I'm looking at different data, 99% of them make no sense to me. Because the second a fund sells a covered call for immediate income, it's agreeing to completely cap its upside. Take the Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF (XYLD) — one of the oldest, most respected covered call funds out there. $10,000 at...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought You love it when dividends hit your account. I love it. Even John D. Rockefeller loved it. If you're reading this, you probably have a passion for passive income. But there's something I wish I knew on day one... Dividends DO NOT increase your net worth. Dividends are a net-worth-neutral event (not including any taxes you might have to pay). Wait. What?! Dividend checks don't increase your net...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought You love it when dividends hit your account. I love it. Even John D. Rockefeller loved it. If you're reading this, you probably have a passion for passive income. But there's something I wish I knew on day one... Dividends DO NOT increase your net worth. Dividends are a net-worth-neutral event (not including any taxes you might have to pay). Wait. What?! Dividend checks don't increase your net...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Here's your weekly helping of interesting investing information and insights. Food For Thought We just booked a flight to Florida, and when we searched, guess what we cared about? The price. Airlines are a perfect example of what happens when most customers stop caring about brand and just go for the cheapest option. Pulak Prasad nails this in his great book What I Learned About Investing from Darwin. He talks about what happens to industries where customers stop caring about brand and just...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read